It was a hazy morning, which did little to diminish the beauty of the city, but it did serve as a reminder of the ultimate futility of photography. The camera can never see so well as the eye when it comes to panoramas and landscapes – the edge of the frame is forever encroaching, forever severing the image from its context, which makes it impossible to understand that this view of the city exists only because of the sheer castle wall on which we stood and simultaneously with the enormousness of St. Vitus towering behind us. Nonetheless, you take what you can get, and always remember that while a picture may be more a thousand words, a thousand pictures are never worth a single moment.
After taking in the views we walked through the gate to the castle's courtyard:
One thing that really struck me about the trip in general, and this site was no exception, was the tremendous proclivity central European kings had for statues of clubbing:
And stabbing:
I understand these were powerful men, but it is beyond me why anyone, after a long day of battling Turks, would want to come home to these monuments of hand-to-hand combat. Maybe this constant exposure to violence was one of the reasons they felt the need to overcompensate when it came to building their churches;
Again, pictures fail once more because to truly understand St. Vitus' Cathedral, one must understand that it sits in the middle of the Prague Castle complex, towering over everything and making one feel immeasurably small in its shadow. I truly understood for the first time what I had been taught in AP European History back in high school – the kings and churches were collaborative rulers, sharing armies and communion without the slightest hint of contradiction.
I suppose it's important to note that this church, and virtually every church we saw on this trip, were initially constructed in the Middle Ages, that "dark" part of history where Europe was in decline and the East was ascendent. But the key thing is that they were built at the end of the Middle Ages, just on the cusp of Western Europe's Renaissance, whose ideas would finally make their way to Bohemia a couple hundred years later. In this way, these buildings provided a fascinating look not only at the fragile balance between Church and State, but also at the fundamental, indispensable alliance between them.
Also, they have beautiful organs:
Awe-inspiring worship spaces:
And stained glass windows that set the whole room ablaze:
St. Vitus also has this impressive display dedicated to John of Nepomuk, the national saint of the Czech Republic who was drowned in the Vltava by Wencelas IV:
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| Yes, that is solid silver. |
In addition to the gothic splendor of St. Vitus, there is also a much older, much smaller Romanesque church that was building well over a thousand years ago and featured the same preoccupation with human remains as we saw in Kutna Hora the day before:
I wonder about all these bones and skeletons we saw. Modern Western society is so far removed from death. It is something that happens largely in hospitals and rest homes, far removed from our day to day lives. And, when someone we love does die, we send the body to the embalmer rather than tending to the deceased in our own homes. This wasn't the case for the people who built these churches and cathedrals, who were confronted with the reality of death more frequently and concretely than we are today.
Anyway, eventually my yin and I made our way down from Prague Castle, elbow to elbow with all the other tourists (we referred to ourselves as sheep, "baaahhhhh...") until we finally made our way across the Charles Bridge and on to Josefov, which used to allow the Jews to leave and mingle freely only during the daytime, but required them to return to their homes and community by nightfall. It?s important to note that this wasn't a Nazi-era edict, but rather stretches back for hundreds of years and speaks to the long, uneasy history between Jews and Gentiles in this part of the world.
Today, however, Josefov is abuzz with commerce, and the streets are lined with the same designer stores one sees in New York, Paris, or London. Gucci, D&G, and Jimmy Choo are all there, existing in an atemporal consumerist utopia and oblivious to the history of the streets on which they reside. Sitting just down the street from these temples of fashion and conspicuous consumption is the Old New Synagogue, which was built in the 13th Century is Europe's oldest active synagogue.
No pictures were not allowed inside, and we found this more than once on our trip. I wonder why it is that the none of the cathedrals we visited had any qualms about photography whereas some of the synagogues did. Perhaps it has something to do with the second commandment, but I'm really not sure. Similarly, inside the Old New Synagogue, all male visitors must cover their heads and are given a disposable kipa. I appreciated this adherence to religious tenet, which was present in all the synagogues we visited but not so much at the Christian churches, whose religious purpose seemed to be secondary to their value as a tourist attraction.
Outside of the Old New Synagogue is the Old Jewish Cemetery, which was the only burial place for Prague's Jews for hundreds of years. Jewish law requires that bodies be interred underground, and space constraints in Josefov ultimately resulted in bodies being buried one on top of the other, with headstones eventually crammed together so close that they now look like a collapsed pile of dominoes. Unfortunately, my yin and I deemed the cost of walking through this cemetery exorbitant and were thus forced to settle for a view from the street:
Heading out of Josefov towards Staré Město Náměsti ("Old Town Square"), we encountered this statue dedicated to Franz Kafka, which I deemed to be appropriately absurd:
Eventually we made our way to our destination, where we were welcomed not only by this impressive statue:
But also by the famed Astronomical Clock:
Where someone had decided to get married on this particular day:
Of course why anyone would want to be married at Old Town Square is beyond me because the place can only be described as a cross between Times Square and the 17th Century. It is a tremendously large area, covered in cobblestones, surrounded by impressive edifices, and absolutely lousy with tourists. They line up to gawk at anything and everything, and I couldn?t help but notice on the café chalkboards that a glass of beer in this part of town cost just as much as it would back in the States. If you've never been to Prague, let me assure you that this is highly abnormal because elsewhere in the city a glass of beer is universally cheaper than soda, juice, coffee, or water.
Anyway, my yin and I were growing tired and feeling all the classic symptoms: stiff back, heavy legs, and a lurking sense of general crankiness. Taking a cue from this man, we decided to go back to our hotel and take a load off:
And walking by the Jubilee Synagogue along the way:
After an hour's worth of rest and a quick shower, my yin headed out once more, eating dinner at a small Afghani restaurant and then going to the National Theater complex where we had tickets for an 8 o'clock show at this modern-looking building next to the Národní divaldo, which reminded me a bit of a Rubik's Cube:
The group was called Laterna magika, a multimedia dance troupe, and the show was called Graffiti, which was easily one of the most visually impressive dance performances I've ever seen. Using polarized sheets of glass set on an angle and a set of rectangular white squares (resembling horizontal blinds) on the ceiling, the designer was able to create amazing optical effects using projection, which alternately made the dancers look ghostly or real, clearly in view or utterly obscured.
The most impressive effect was when the dancers synchronized their movement with recorded images of the same movement, which gave the impression of a living, moving memory, replete with all the distortions and inconsistencies that give them their power. It reminded me of Chris Marker's work, only more so.
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